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Homicide at Five Points Correctional: dead inmate's family wants answers

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Thomas J. Blancke seen here holding his son Thomas Jr., was murdered Saturday in his cell at Five Points Correctional Facility. Blancke was serving a term of 18 months to 3 years for attempted burglary.
(Courtsey of the Adams family)

The maximum security prison that has 1,560 beds had 1,415 inmates as of Friday, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Blancke's aunt Betty Adams-LaBar of Cayuta received a phone call at 7 a.m. Saturday informing her that her nephew had been killed.

A coroner called that evening. "He couldn't tell us anything except that there is definitely foul play," Adams said.

Blancke has five siblings. His father Billy R. Adams comes from a large clan centering around Hammondsport, Adams said.

As a teen, Billy R. Adams, now 45, was accused of murder, when a gun went off killing another man a few years older than he, his sisters said. Billy Adams was never charged, but the family was ostracized and his parents moved out of the small community, his sisters said.

Billy Adams has been in and out of jail several times, his sister said. He is currently serving nine years at the Cayuga Correctional Facility for first-degree attempted burglary, according to a state Department of Corrections website.

Adams is scheduled to be released from prison on Jan. 5, 2015, and his son's release date would have been three days later.

Shortly after his father was sentenced, Blancke's mother moved to Kentucky, the aunts said.

Blancke lived with her for a time, Adams-LaBar said, and he listed her as his next of kin on his prison forms.

Her nephew was bipolar and had attention deficit disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she said. "He sometimes didn't know the difference between right and wrong," Adams-LaBar said.

"He wasn't a bad kid. He had some issues," she said. "He was never charged with a violent crime."

Adams said her nephew was a junk man, earning money by clearing unwanted items from properties and selling them off for scrap. In July 2012, state police in Bath accused him of third-degree burglary with the intent to enter, a felony, and petit larceny, a misdemeanor. He was accused of stealing property from a building in the town of Wayne.

Blancke became frustrated with the public defenders assigned to his case in Steuben County, Adams-LaBar said. He didn't feel that they listened to him and he fired several, she said.

"He would call at crazy hours just to talk," she said. "I'd calm him down and go deal with another day."

Blancke married Laurie Ann Smith in March, their son Thomas Blancke Jr. was born in June, and he was sentenced in July to 18 months to three years in prison for two counts of attempted third-degree burglary, his aunts said.

"I was actually shocked at the sentence," Adams-LaBar said.

Because she doesn't yet know how Blancke died, Adams-LaBar said she hasn't told her brother that his son was killed. And because she doesn't know the condition of his body, she can't tell the funeral home whether to have Blancke's memorial service with an open or closed casket, Adams-LaBar said.

While there are questions that remain to be answered, Blancke's final home is definite. He'll be buried next to his grandfather in Cayuta Cemetery, Adams-LaBar said.